Keaton Kohl senior year in athletics had its ups and downs. In golf, he finished fifth at the district tournament as Lake Wales’ top golfer. He was an honorable mention all-county selection as Lake Wales’ top baseball player in a season in which he had mixed feelings about but ended on a high note with a district title.
In the classroom, however, there was nothing but ups. Kohl excelled throughout his career academically, graduating with a 4.732 GPA in Lake Wales International Baccalaureate program en route to being The Ledger’s 2025-26 Boys Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
In the classroom it was business as usual as Kohl excelled academically growing up. The fall, he said, was especially tough academically, but there was a balance he sought throughout the year.
“In the fall, there were college applications, and we had to write a lot of essays for IB along with golf,” he said. “Then in the spring, I had to study for my test and baseball would take up the whole day basically, so I couldn’t leave school. I had to do a lot on the weekends and get a lot done at school.”
Math, he said, came easy while physics was probably his toughest class.
In addition to Bright Futures, Kohl earned the Vires Scholarship, Sunshine Award and IB Diploma Scholarship worth a combined $26,000. He’s most proud of the 35 he got on the ACT. It placed him in the 99th percentile of all test-takers nationwide.
Athletically, he stayed busy in his high school career. He played golf as a freshman, sophomore and senior. He played soccer his first three years and played baseball, his main sport, all four seasons.
His 84 at the district meet, which was five strokes lower than any other teammate, put him comfortable in fifth place as only four golfers broke 80 and no golfer other than the top five shot lower than 87.
A soccer highlight came when he was part of Lake Wales’ district championship team as a junior.
Kohl finished his high school batting .324 for his career on varsity. He was Lake Wales’ only .300 hitter this past season as he batted .333 and led the team with 20 runs scored and was second with six doubles and 13 stolen bases.
“I did better than last year, but I feel I wasn’t as great as I could have done,” he said. “Defensively, I think I did really well, but offensive, I batted pretty well but I fell I could have done better.”
It was an inconsistent season for Lake Wales as its 13-14 record would suggest, but Lake Wales beat Mulberry, 3-1, and Hardee, 1-0, to capture the district title. Kohl scored the only run and had one of just two hits that Lake Wales managed.
“We lost a bunch of games that we shouldn’t have lost, but we got more competitive later in the year,” he said.
His future plans aren’t set. He plans to major in economics and finance at Florida State but remains undecided as to what he wants to do career-wise.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Lake Wales’ Kohl excelled in 3 sports as top boys scholar athlete
Reporting by Roy Fuoco, Lakeland Ledger / The Ledger
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Roy Fuoco, Lakeland Ledger | USA TODAY Network
